


Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky

by marginaliana



Category: Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: Episode Related, M/M, Poetry, Top Gear: Botswana special
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 21:13:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4640424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginaliana/pseuds/marginaliana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I know a Philip Larkin poem about the moon, would you like to hear it?" "NO."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky

**Author's Note:**

> [Here is the poem in full](http://www.artofeurope.com/larkin/lar1.htm).

After the crew's packed up and Richard has gone off to sit by the fire with a well-deserved can of beer, Jeremy says, very quietly, "Go on then."

"Mmm?" James says. He's turned back to the horizon, and the silhouette of his face is lit soft red. 

"Philip Larkin," Jeremy says. He nudges James' shoulder with his own. "Come on, let's have it."

It's too dark to tell for sure, but he thinks James flicks a glance at him, out of the corner of his eye. The wind slithers past them, cool and dark, cutting across the night air.

James breathes in. He says:

> Groping back to bed after a piss   
> I part thick curtains, and am startled by  
> The rapid clouds, the moon's cleanliness.

James' voice when he recites is different from his regular voice, a little rounder, a little more intimate. Jeremy's heard it a few times before, but he's surprised every time at the physicality of his reaction. A sharp line of moonlight-bright pinpricks ripples down his arms and up the back of his neck; his mouth is desert-dry.

> Four o'clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie  
> Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky.  
> There's something laughable about this,
> 
> The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow  
> Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart  
> (Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below)

The moon is higher now, easing white as it clears the dusty horizon. James tilts his head up, his hair a scatter of silver. He declaims, no louder but somehow more strident:

> High and preposterous and separate—  
> Lozenge of love! Medallion of art!   
> O wolves of memory! Immensements! No,
> 
> One shivers slightly, looking up there.   
> The hardness and the brightness and the plain  
> Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare

Jeremy shivers, not at all slightly. He wants to put his mouth to James' mouth, take each word between his own lips. Wants to bite down as if into a chilled apple, let the juices of the words trickle across his parched tongue into his his throat.

> Is a reminder of the strength and pain  
> Of being young; that it can't come again,  
> But is for others undiminished somewhere.

In the hush after the last words, Jeremy can hear the faint call of a bird, off in the distance. He waits a long moment, but it goes unanswered.

And suddenly he thinks: if the moon is watching, let it watch. What has he been waiting for? He turns, takes a step closer, the sound of his footfall soft but unmistakable in the silence. He puts a hand on James' arm. James turns towards him, his face sliding into shadow so that Jeremy has to close the last few inches blind, has to lean in and kiss him without even the lift of an eyebrow to tell him whether he's going to get smacked in the face for the presumption.

James' mouth is soft, lips parted just enough to give Jeremy a taste of his breath. Then James' hands are on his shoulders, pushing him away. 

"Jez—"

Jeremy tilts his face into the moonlight and lets his eyes say everything he has to say. For a moment, the only noise is the wind.

Then James breathes his name, " _Jeremy_ ," like it's a poem in itself, like he'd memorized it years ago and had just needed the right moment to let it spill from his lips. 

Maybe they'd both been waiting – stupidly – for youth to come again.

James' fingers flex tremblingly on his shoulders, pulling him close. And then they're kissing again, soft and hurried sweet, and Jeremy forgets about the moon entirely.


End file.
